Anybody live in a Toll Brothers house?

No I don't live in a Toll Brothers house, I live in a Tollhouse, brother!

i do like the cookies, tho.

They have a nice golf course community here in Raleigh called Brier Creek. An acquaintence of mine through another friend bought a house there and has been pretty happy with it.

Lee,
Have they ever compare their actual measurements to the floorplan in the sales brochure. That seems to be Toll's biggest offense. The brochure shows a room as 327 sq ft. The real blueprint filed with the building inspector shows it as only 285. Then they just claim it was an "honest mistake" when they are busted.

So I guess their houses are kind of "crumby".

Never heard of 'em. Is that the name of a construction company?

I hate when I come to these threads and someone else has preempted my cookie jokes

Damn, now I'm really hungry.
On topic: it sounds like some of the tract companies out here in CA. They are more concerned with getting em up as quickly as possible and less about the quality and workmanship. Lawsiuts pending.

Stay away from Toll Brothers, Philip. I'm up in Boston and I remember that story. IIRC there was also a TV segment on the local news about this developer. As an architect I tend to follow these stories and let me tell you, I would NEVER buy a house from them. Shoddy construction seems to be the hallmark of Toll Brothers.

My hometown is overwhelmed by Toll Brothers neighborhoods. After my house was built (by another builder), Toll took over my neighborhood & completed it (approx 100 toll homes). The houses on either side of me are Toll Brothers.
My parents have been in a Toll Brothers home since ~1988.

Our conclusion ... they're not terrible, but I would NOT buy one. Rather cheap construction standards and you'll generally pay a fortune in upgrades just to get what you want.

Most of the Toll homes near us are brick front & vinyl siding on the 3 other sides. After framing, the outside walls are covered in construction grade foil-lined cardboard (rather than plywood); siding goes over the cardboard. Think about this ... you could cut youself a door in the side of a Toll home with a decent carpet knife!

Inside, everything seems to be the minimum. My parents have dealt with shifting, rotting doorframes, leaky shower, & frequent basic plumbing problems.

Toll Brothers model homes are great showplaces, but, like I said ... you can do yourself much better.

Scott

Philip, do you have the link to that Toll Brothers expose? I've searched the Globe's website and don't seem to find it.

Thanks, Patrick

Ricardo, thanks buddy.

Patrick

They are big and impressive looking but when you look closely they are not well constructed. I read the Globe article (I live near Hopkinton MA where the article was written)
and was amazed at the shortcuts taken by TB...

Right now they are listing for $600K-800K.

No thanks

How much stock can be placed in this newspaper article, or for that matter the complaints listed at the hadd.com website? There's not enough information to know if these are isolated incidents or indicative of a systemic problems with these various builders. What's the average cost of fixing problems with Toll House homes nationally? How does this compare to other builders? Was MA an aberration (as they claim) or normal business for them (as The Globe implies)?

Are there any large surveys done of the quality from various builders over the past several years? I find "complaint" websites hard to use since user-submitted feedback tends to be self-selecting towards people with serious problems. Happy owners are content and don't feel compelled to post stories about it.

I also noticed that Philip's trusted "NV Homes" is owned by NVR, which is also the parent company for "Ryan Homes." And Ryan appears with a variety of complaints; does that indicate problems with NVR that would appear in NV Homes?

Dave, I would tend to agree with you. Yes, I'm sure there are losts of people who have had problems with Toll and plenty of other production builders. However, in the big scheme of things the percentage is bound to be low with the vast majority of people really happy.

I work for a commercial general contractor and I can tell you that sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just have a project on which everything seems to go wrong. Also, occaisionally, you will have a customer that can't be satisfied with anything other that abject perfection, even though they darn sure wanted a bargain price up front. When you have those 2 issues occur on the same project, you get what we see at HADD.

Now, I disagree with the way most of the production homebuilders handle their complaints, I think they would be better off in the long run to just go in and fix things or even buy the people out but I guess some bean counter somewhere figured they had to draw the line somewhere and this is it. I also think much of this comes down to the regional or even city level management in the way that they run their organization.

I guess it all goes to show you that you should make sure you keep a watchfull eye on things, after all, no one is going to look out for your interests as much as you yourself will. Also, it is a good idea to get a 3rd party home inspector involved. A good one can help the homeowner get a better product and they can also serve to set expectations for the buyer as to what really is normal and what is BS tossed out by a contractor trying to save a few bucks by not doing something the way it should be. (Although you should realize that arguing with a contractor is like wrestling a pig in the mud: after a while, you will realize he likes it. )

I read it quickly. The survey seemed to have only looked at three homes and assessed the problems there. There were two families with substantial problems interviewed. And a few experts decried the lack of quality. That's scary information, but doesn't provide me with the median cost of problems, the standard deviation of the cost of problems over a large sample size, and the percentage of problem houses by Toll Brothers over their corporate history.

So maybe MA houses by the Toll Brothers are junk, or maybe the newspaper found the experts who will give the sensationalistic negative quotes and the few people with huge problems.

I know a contractor who's company frequently does work for Toll and from what he says I wouldn't think of buying one of their homes. He says that based on the low reimbursement from Toll most sub jobs can't be done right. The subs are not going to do anything that they don't get paid for, no matter how simple or cheap.

To be fair - many other big builders are the sames way. Materials and techniques used are just to get through the warranty (usually one year). The sad thing is it really doesn't cost too much more to do most things right. My question is this: if people are seeing all kinds of problems with these homes early, what kind of shape will they be in 10, 20, or 50 years from now?

My suggestion: do a lot of homework and find a smaller builder known for their quality or even a custom builder that truly takes pride in and stands behind their work. Yes, more expensive, so buy less house. At least you will be able to sleep at night without worrying that someone is cutting through your exterior walls with a carpet knife.

Good Luck.

Philip,

My friend is a real estate agent and he said that Centex makes great homes too. Might want to check them out too.

Jeff

The stucco thing brings up a good point. Be very, very leery of any house with sythetic stucco, even the new "drainable" systems. Many of the problems with SS arise from improper installation of the system. Yes, there are certainly some design issues but if you have a crew that is not well trained, in a hurry and not really carefull about every single joint where the stucco makes contact with a dissimilar material or transition, you will have problems.

From the Globe article- A building inspector who tells it like it is.

I live in a Centex home (we had it built in '94), and it's OK. I can see where they cut corners to maximize profit, but I don't have any structural issues. It's nine years old, and I've not developed any serious problems. Wood rot on a back door frame that gets deluged with the summer rains is about it.

I'm considering acting as my own general contractor, and doing it myself (with hired help, of course) next time, so I can take my time, get it right, and use all the materials I'd like to see go into the structure.

Todd

Re: Anybody live in a Toll Brothers house?

Do not purchase a Toll Brothers home. We made the mistake and signed with them in Feb of '07 and now with our own inspector, structural engineer, and lawyer we are in the process of holding Toll Brothers in breech of contract and getting our money back. We have 62 violations on the home. We have two large retaining walls (over 20 feet) neither of which has an engineering approval, a water test was not performed on our property and therefore no one can guaranty that our walk-out basement will not flood, the i-beams supporting the house are not plumb and were not welded correctly, the ceiling will not hold the weight of the roof and will eventually cause the walls to bow out, I can go on and on. We gave Toll the list of 52 items from our inspector and they have done nothing in the last 6 weeks to correct any problems. We sent our inspector back out and now we have a list of 62 items... Toll says they have all of there inspections and sign offs from the city, but if you get a copy of the inspections from the city file they have been told there are no engineering records on any aspect of our home and they are not to proceed until they fix the problems. Toll is set to drywall next week. Toll chooses to quickly hide the problems and could careless about the your ability to re-sell the home. Who would buy a home with 62 violations that would have to be disclosed. Do not buy a Toll brothers home. The entire subdivision in Lakeway has been poorly built with one retaining wall failure to date.